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Simple & yet most effective.

The 2012 World Economic Forum began yesterday (January 25th) in Davos, Switzerland and even though these Yes Men remixes were created in 2010, they still provide a fantastic (and dissident) variation on the forum’s new theme: The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/9008921 w=500&h=400]

By simply re-dubbing video interviews with global economic, government and corporate leaders, the Yes Men create a more honest economic leader, foreshadowing the dissent amongst protesters who continue to Occupy the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/9008826 w=500&h=400]

This year’s forum encourages leaders to “return to their core purpose of defining what the future should look like, aligning stakeholders around that vision…” , and the lip dubs give world leaders a chance to answer that call openly, admitting their not-so-friendly visions.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/9011666 w=500&h=400]

The remix of Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) CEO Patricia Woertz didn’t sit well; they successfully filed a takedown notice to have it removed from YouTube. The video, along with other lip dubs (Prince Harry and Nicholas Sarkozy, etc) remain live on Vimeo.

What I love about these is that they are so simple: just a minor tweak can make a copyrighted text Fair Use. The creators quoted the copyrighted material to create a new meaning through juxtaposition which is totally Fair Use as Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video makes clear. By re-dubbing and re-editing the audio, the creators change the meaning of all three pieces of copyrighted material, addressing a very different audience than their intended original.